It's Time for Sen. Obama to Explain His Record
Memo to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.):
It's time for you to explain the inconsistencies of your positions and the way you describe your past record.
Your complaint that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is "attacking people" and "throwing mud" because she challenged the accuracy of your characterization of your own healthcare plan as "universal" appears hypocritical. It was you who voluntarily attacked Sen. Clinton for being "untruthful and misleading" several weeks ago in a voluntary sit-down with two New York Times reporters. That is clearly a direct attack on character -- the functional equivalent of calling Sen. Clinton a liar. And yet, at least according to the Times article, you offered no specific examples in that article to back up such a serious personal attack.
It's time for the public to know facts and inconsistencies in your positions and your record that, so far, much of the national press corps has allowed you to ignore.
1. Your healthcare program. Sen. Clinton is right and you are wrong. Her healthcare proposal provides for a universal mandate, and yours does not and leaves out millions of people. That is a fact. As Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist (and no Hillary fan) recently wrote, your plan would allow millions of healthy people to opt out and then opt in when they develop health problems. Under your plan, he wrote, "people who did the right thing when they were healthy would end up subsidizing those who didn't sign up for insurance until or unless they needed medical care." Mr. Krugman continued:
Mr. Obama is attacking his rivals and claiming that his plan is superior. It isn't -- and his attacks amount to cheap shots.
2. Your PAC's donations. Your political action committee (PAC) donated funds to state and local elected officials in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Shortly after receiving those donations, some endorsed your candidacy. The Washington Post reported that these funds were directed to these individuals by officials in your presidential campaign. A federal election law expert told the Post reporter that if that was the case, this could be a violation of federal election law. Will you be fully transparent about who, what, when, where and why regarding these donations? And if this was "coordination" and "direction" from your presidential campaign, as the story documented, how could it not be a violation?
3. Your position on the Iraq war. You have criticized Sen. Clinton for supporting the October 2002 Iraq war resolution (just as the governor of your state, Rod R. Blagojevich, did when he was in the House of Representatives, as did former Sen. Max Cleland, who lost two arms and a leg in the Vietnam War, and 29 Democratic senators). You claim to have been opposed to that resolution before you became a U.S. senator.
Yet when you were asked (I believe for the first time) in the fall of 2004, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, how you would have voted on that resolution had you been a U.S. senator, you were quoted in the Chicago Tribune answering, "I don't know."
Then in March 2007, your press secretary was quoted as refusing "eight times" to answer a New York Times reporter's question as to why you couldn't answer that question back in 2004. When pressed again, he said you refused to answer such a "hypothetical" question. So how can you accurately say that you opposed the war resolution when you said "I don't know" way back then and refused to explain that answer at least as recently as March 2007. And how is it fair to criticize Sen. Clinton's (and Gov. Blagojevich's) judgment for doing so at that time when she says today, "Had I known then what I know now [that there were no WMDs in Iraq], I would not have voted for that resolution"?
You also voted against Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) amendment in the summer of 2006 to set a deadline on withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq (as did Sen. Clinton and most Senate Democrats). Yet I don't think you have ever reminded voters about that vote since you began your presidential campaign.
4. Your position on the Iran Resolution. You criticized Sen. Clinton's vote in September supporting a Senate resolution asking the U.S. government to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG) as a "foreign terrorist organization," which could trigger economic sanctions. In an op-ed in the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader, you called that vote "reckless." Yet you failed to disclose that you had co-sponsored a Senate Resolution (S. 970) in March 2007 that used exactly the same language to designate the IRG a "foreign terrorist organization." And you failed to disclose that the senior senator from your own state of Illinois, Dick Durbin (D), also supported the September resolution and publicly disagreed with you that it could possibly provide a basis for intervening in Iran.
Are you prepared to charge Sen. Durbin, too, with a "reckless" vote on a resolution with the same IRG designation language as in the March resolution you co-sponsored?
5. Your commitment to visit five dictators in your first year as president. In one of the Democratic debates, you committed to visiting five dictators in Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran and North Korea, without preconditions, personally, in your first year as president. You later tried to revise what you actually said by stating you were referring only to the principle of the need to negotiate with "hostile governments." (But that is not what you said at the debate.) Then you criticized Sen. Clinton for not being willing to negotiate with hostile governments, which is false, and you knew it was false. In fact, you knew that Sen. Clinton had already endorsed the Hamilton-Kean task force recommendation for the U.S. to negotiate with Syria and Iran to assist in finding a regional solution to the Iraq war.
6. Your position on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. After Sen. Clinton gave a garbled response to her position on this issue in the Philadelphia debate, she was intensely criticized by you, accusing her of intentionally obscuring her position, and by media commentators. (She subsequently admitted she had not given a clear answer.)
Yet in the very next debate in Las Vegas, both of you were asked whether you supported such driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. She gave a simple "no," and you gave a garbled and virtually incomprehensible answer. You were hardly criticized by the media -- certainly when compared to the two weeks of criticism of Sen. Clinton after her response. So what is your position?
7. Social Security reform. You say you favor increasing FICA taxes by raising the income ceilings above approximately $91,000/year of income. This would amount to over a trillion-dollar tax increase. You also say you want a bipartisan approach to governing. Do you really think congressional Republicans will ever agree to a Social Security solution that just involves raising taxes this much?
Sen. Clinton prefers to do what President Reagan and the late Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan did in the 1980s--appoint a bipartisan commission whose recommendations were broadly accepted on both sides of the aisle. Yet you accuse her of refusing to take a position. Would you have accused Sen. Moynihan of that? Truthfully, who has the more bipartisan approach on this important issue, you or Sen. Clinton?
*****
Sen. Obama: you are a fine and decent young man and you have been an excellent presidential candidate. However, the problem with a seemingly sanctimonious campaign theme that implies that you are the superior candidate of reform, change, and candor is that you are judged more harshly when you don't apply to yourself the high standards that you insist others have to meet.
It's time, Sen. Obama, for you to explain your inconsistent record and your apparent double standard.
It's time for you to come out behind the rhetoric of "turning the page" and read the page accurately to voters concerning your past record, your current positions and Sen. Clinton's.
And it's time for the political media to give greater scrutiny to the facts concerning your record.
* * * * *
Mr. Davis, a Washington attorney and former Special Counsel to President Clinton, is a supporter and fundraiser for the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
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Overlooked: according to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 1990 in Campbell vs. Clinton the congressional funding of a specific war is the legal equivalent of a congressional declaration of war. Senator Obama may have been opposed to the war in Iraq before he got into the Senate, after he became a Senator he morphed into a de facto supporter of the war and occupation of Iraq by his voting record. In my opinion he is an imperialist-lite who, like JFK (Cuba, Vietnam), will lead us to new wars if he becomes our next president.
With regards to the issue of future wars, all Republican wannabes are suspect and so is Hillary Clinton. The only candidates that have my admittedly only modest trust in this respect are Biden, Dodd, and Kucinich. Edwards is an enigma. We should not elect an enigma our president.
PLEASE !!!
Hillary has proven to be a Repug. I have no lean towards any of the current candidates- but yours is not even in the top 3 Dems I would consider.
SHE HAS REPEATEDLY SUPPORTED THIS CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION !!!
I too thought her run would be a no brainer- but obviously she has decided to act like it.
I consider her Bush Lite (26 yrs reg Dem)
Yes, Senator Obama, explain.
Frankly, I find it disturbing that Lanny Davis and I are on the same side in all this.
I have long been a proponent that prospective voters take a close look at the real advocated policy positions and record of B Obama. We cannot be allowed the luxury of simply following the illusion created by the PR efforts of the candidate or celeb endorsements, even if the celeb is....O * P * R * A * H. (is it true she promised to give everyone who votes for Obama a car?) He is not necessarily the candidate of change particularly if one looks at his record. He has not distinguished himself, as such, in the Senate at all. In fact he appears to have slacked off his duties significantly and regularly failed to vote on many key issues. Iran for instance. He is sort of a Republican style Dem in that way.
I contend, however, that his greatest offense is his Vietnam style "scorched earth" campaign, which if he fails to win the nomination will leave the actual democratic nominee in a weakened position for the general election. Maybe Obama's too young and inexperienced to remember the manifestations of that policy, with the nightly news displays of napalmed forests and effects of agent orange defoliant. Maybe he is too narcissistic to feel he needs to learn anything from the past...Wel
Obama, in the general election, is far too vulnerable a candidate. And while his candid discussion of his personal coke use was ...refresh
The candidates miss the voting for convenience. It is a way of deceiving the public when they abstain from voting.
The fact Hillary voted for the Patriot Act twice, the Military Commission Act and for the Kyl/Lieberman Amendment should be of concern to
any voter. Obama and his record raises a red
flag. So why do you let the press determine who are the top candidates?
So now we are down to legal briefs to figure out who should be president. Again this has come about because neither Sen Obama or Sen Clinton can articulate how they would govern. We the people watching this are left to fill in large blanks. On all issues a direction can be cited but how you are going to get the rest of the government mobilized in that direction is not part of the equation.
Many of you have stated that Bill Richardson seems to have the know how to get things done but is not flashy enough for you. This is usually a guess that you can see he is the right person but wonder if he will he sell to the next person. However you are only responsible for your own vote. Now that we see the pettiness and celebrity distraction does nothing to clarify the attraction of either of the so called front runners, it is time to move to someone who has actually shown that he can get the job done. Hope is nice but that just makes you one of the crowd, not the one who leads.
On any issue a candidate's position can be shown to have flaws but just how do they go about getting consensus and a better working plan for the people of this country. The Senator from NY tells us she can beat Republicans. Is this the primary test of a president? Sen Obama tells us he wants to amalgamate Red and Blue but has never done it before. Want to take the chance? Bill Richardson has governed a so called poor Red State and has been impressive in bringing progress to New Mexico. As for his ability to be elected 69% of his constituents voted for him, the largest margin in the state's history. It is time to stop being politically calculating and choose who would be best to run this country.
"Mr. Davis, a Washington attorney and former Special Counsel to President Clinton, is a supporter and fundraiser for the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.)."
That disclaimer should've been at the beginning of the article not at the end.
Bore, bore, bore
I'm still not convinced as to why he missed voting on the Kyl-Lieberman legislation.
1) I don't entirely agree with Obama's health care plan, as it does appear that people can take advantage of the lack of a mandate. At the same time, I don't believe that people who are so dirt poor that they can't even afford Clinton or Edwards' plans should be penalized AND left without insurance.
2) PAC's typically donate money to candidates they support, as is the case with Obama's Hopefund. The little reported fact is that many of the Democrats that Obama donated to have actually endorsed other candidates.
3) Obama was asked the question of how he would have voted on the Iraq resolution during the Democratic National Convention. In order to prevent from making the party seem in disunity (especially since Kerry/Edwards both voted FOR the resolution) he opted to deflect the question with a simple "I don't know." While in the Illinois Senate, at a rally in Chicago's Daley Plaza in 2002, Obama clearly stated "I'm not opposed to all wars, I'm opposed to dumb wars."
4) I will defer to kj593 and request that you google Obama's op-ed in the Union-Leader regarding the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment. Sen. Durbin is not a candidate for President. HRC is.
5) Please show me an instance in which Obama has backed down from his position that he would visit with the heads of state of countries with which we are at odds?
6) Obama (along with Bill Richardson) believe that licenses for illegal immigrants will make it easier to enforce said immigrants into purchasing mandated auto insurance. Without such a plan, imagine trying to collect damages in an auto accident with an illegal immigrant. HRC simply said, "No," because she knew anything else would re-energize the criticisms brought about after the Philadelphia debate.
7) Obama is suggesting we tax the wealthiest 6% of Americans at the same rate that we tax everybody else, as opposed to merely taxing the first $97K that they make. Warren Buffett, the second richest man on planet Earth, supports such an idea.
Any more questions Mr. Davis?
Remember people this is the primary!
When this is done we shake hands and join together to regain control of our country.
Make all your words soft and sweet, you never know when you have to eat them.
Can't say I'd expect more from this Professional Clinton Apologist (also known for moonlighting as a Liebercrat). Lanny, tell me this...if, as Hillary contends, she never voted to authorize war in Iraq, why wasn't she critical of the war until things went wrong? But, no, don't bother to ask Hillary to explain this, or her other 'finger in the wind' votes and statements.
If I needed an opinion on Obama Lanny is not the person to whom I'd turn - but one thing is certain, I prefer someone young and intelligent to to someone with experience like the Clintons. Enough of dynasties!
I see that the Clinton corporate weasels are coming out of their burrows to squeal their BS into the campaign winds. NAFTA. Bill championed it. It sold out American workers. Yay Bill. Thanks. Inside the beltway corporate dominance has poisoned both the Republican and the Democratic party. I say this with a profound sadness, having been a Democrat for the past 60 years.
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